In an op-ed published by Rzeczpospolita, former Foreign Minister Czaputowicz criticized the government’s decision to schedule a national referendum on the same day as the parliamentary elections, calling it illegal.
He compared the situation in Poland to Hungary, noting that both countries were holding elections and referendums simultaneously. However, he argued that the situation in Poland was worse, expressing regret that there wasn’t a similar situation to Budapest in Poland.
Czaputowicz contended that Poland’s election law was marked by “structural violence,” making it more problematic from a democratic perspective than Hungary’s system. He believed this would affect the international assessment of the elections.
He pointed out key differences between the electoral systems of the two countries, highlighting that in Hungary, there were separate voter lists for the elections and the referendum, and invalid votes did not affect the turnout. In Poland, invalid votes were counted, and the only way to oppose the referendum was to abstain. Additionally, there would be a common electoral roll for both the elections and the referendum, preventing the referendum from being non-binding.
Czaputowicz quoted legal expert Jerzy Kwaśniewski, who argued that artificially inflating the turnout for a referendum was unacceptable. He stressed that citizens should have the right to vote separately in elections and referendums and that refusing to take a ballot paper or damping it could facilitate falsification.
Czaputowicz also mentioned Polish Ombudsman Marcin Wiącek’s concerns that a voter who refused to take a ballot paper might feel uncomfortable, potentially violating Poland’s penal code, which prohibits using dependence to force people to vote a certain way.
Czaputowicz criticized the Polish state for no longer protecting citizens’ right to vote secretly and accused it of using structural violence to exploit citizens’ fears of repression, calling it “a criminal under the law it has established.”
Czaputowicz, a political scientist and professor at Warsaw University, served as foreign minister in the PiS government between 2018 and 2020.
The government’s decision to hold a referendum alongside the parliamentary elections has been met with criticism, with opponents arguing that the referendum questions are biased and that it serves as a political tool rather than a genuine exercise of democracy.